Cette page provient du site  :

http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/sci/nonlinear-faq/faq.html
(merci à James Meiss) 
Nonlinear Science FAQ
Archive-name: sci/nonlinear-faq
Posting-Frequency: monthly

[1]     About Sci.nonlinear FAQ

This is version 1.2.0 (June 1998) of the Frequently Asked Questions document 
for the newsgroup sci.nonlinear. This document can also be found in 
Html format from:
        http://amath.colorado.edu/appm/faculty/jdm/faq.html Colorado,
        http://www-chaos.engr.utk.edu/faq.html Tennessee,
        http://www.fen.bris.ac.uk/engmaths/research/nonlinear/faq.html England, 
        http://www.sci.usq.edu.au/mirror/sci.nonlinear.faq/faq.html  Australia,
        http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/sci/nonlinear-faq/faq.html  
                the FAQ's site,
        http://www.faqs.org/faqs/sci/nonlinear-faq/  Hypertext FAQ Archive
Or in other formats: 
        ftp://amath.colorado.edu/pub/dynamics/papers/sci.nonlinearFAQ.rtf 
                 RTF Format,
        ftp://amath.colorado.edu/pub/dynamics/papers/sci.nonlinearFAQ.tex 
                TeX format, 
        ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/sci/nonlinear-faq text format.

This FAQ is maintained by Jim Meiss <jdm@boulder.colorado.edu>.

Copyright (c) 1995-1998 by James D. Meiss, all rights reserved. This FAQ  may 
be posted to any USENET newsgroup, on-line service, or BBS as long as it  is 
posted in its entirety and includes this copyright statement. This FAQ may  
not be distributed for financial gain. This FAQ may not be included in  
commercial collections or compilations without express permission from the  
author. 

[1.1] What's New?

        [2.9] Modified the discussion of the Laplacian Dictum and its 
               relation to Chaos  (thanks to Jeffrey Goldberg for this).
        [2.11] Revised the wording in the informal definition of Lyapunov 
              Exponent  thanks Fred Klingener).
        [3.10] Added a link to Ivars Peterson's billiards discussion.
        [4.1]   Added a new text to the "advanced text" section
        [5.1]   Fixed lots of links and added some new ones.
        [5.2]   Revised links and added some new software


[1]     About Sci.nonlinear FAQ
[1.1] What's New?
[2]     Basic Theory     
[2.1] What is nonlinear?
[2.2] What is nonlinear science?
[2.3] What is a dynamical system?
[2.4] What is phase space?
[2.5] What is a degree of freedom?
[2.6] What is a map?
[2.7] How are maps related to flows (differential equations)?
[2.8] What is an attractor?
[2.9] What is chaos?
[2.10] What is sensitive dependence on initial conditions?
[2.11] What are Lyapunov exponents?
[2.12] What is a Strange Attractor?
[2.13] Can computers simulate chaos?
[2.14] What is generic?
[2.15] What is the minimum phase space dimension for chaos?
[3]     Applications and Advanced Theory
[3.1] What are complex systems?
[3.2] What are fractals?
[3.3] What do fractals have to do with chaos?
[3.4] What are topological and fractal dimension?
[3.5] What is a Cantor set?
[3.6] What is quantum chaos?
[3.7] How do I know if my data are deterministic?
[3.8] What is the control of chaos?
[3.9] How can I build a chaotic circuit?
[3.10] What are simple experiments to demonstrate chaos?
[3.11] What is targeting?
[3.12] What is time series analysis?
[3.13] Is there chaos in the stock market?
[3.14] What are solitons?
[3.15] What is spatio-temporal chaos?
[3.16] What are cellular automata?
[3.17] What is a Bifurcation?
[4]     To Learn More
[4.1] What should I read to learn more?
[4.2] What technical journals have nonlinear science articles?
[4.3] What are net sites for nonlinear science materials?
[5]     Computational Resources
[5.1] What are general computational resources?
[5.2] Where can I find specialized programs for  nonlinear science?
[6] Acknowledgments






[2]     Basic Theory
[2.1] What is nonlinear?

In geometry, linearity refers to Euclidean objects: lines, planes, (flat) 
three-dimensional space, etc.--these objects appear the same no matter how we 
examine them. A nonlinear object, a sphere for example, looks different on 
different scales--when looked at closely enough it looks like a plane, and 
from a far enough distance it looks like a point. 

In algebra, we define linearity in terms of functions that have the property 
f(x+y) = f(x)+f(y) and f(ax) = af(x). Nonlinear is defined as the negation of 
linear. This means that the result f may be out of proportion to the input x 
or y. The result may be more than linear, as when a diode begins to pass 
current; or less than linear, as when finite resources limit Malthusian 
population growth. Thus the fundamental simplifying tools of linear analysis 
are no longer available: for example, for a linear system, if we have two 
zeros, f(x) = 0 and f(y) = 0, then we automatically have a third zero f(x+y) = 
0 (in fact there are infinitely many zeros as well, since linearity implies 
that f(ax+by) = 0 for any a and b). This is called the principle of 
superposition--it gives many solutions from a few. For nonlinear systems, each 
solution must be fought for (generally) with unvarying ardor! 

[2.2] What is nonlinear science?      

Stanislaw Ulam reportedly said (something like) "Calling a science 'nonlinear' 
is like calling zoology 'the study of non-human animals'. So why do we have a 
name that appears to be merely a negative? 

Firstly, linearity is rather special, and no model of a real system is truly 
linear (you might protest that quantum mechanics is an exception, however this 
is at the expense of infinite dimensionality which is just as bad or worse-- 
and 'any' finite dimensional nonlinear model can be turned into an infinite 
dimensional linear one--e.g. a map x'=f(x) is equivalent to the linear 
integral equation
p'(x) = integral [ p(y) \delta(x-f(y)) dy ]). 
Some things are profitably studied as linear approximations to the real 
models--for example the fact that Hooke's law, the linear law of elasticity 
(strain is proportional to stress) is approximately valid for a pendulum of 
small amplitude implies that its period is approximately independent of 
amplitude. However, as the amplitude gets large the period gets longer, a 
fundamental effect of nonlinearity in the pendulum equations (see [3.10]).

Secondly, nonlinear systems have been shown to exhibit surprising and complex 
effects that would never be anticipated by a scientist trained only in linear 
techniques. Prominent examples of these include bifurcation, chaos, and 
solitons. Nonlinearity has its most profound effects on dynamical systems (see 
[2.3]).

Further, while we can enumerate the linear objects, nonlinear ones are 
nondenumerable, and as of yet mostly unclassified. We currently have no 
general techniques (and very few special ones) for telling whether a 
particular nonlinear system will exhibit the complexity of chaos, or the 
simplicity of order. Thus since we cannot yet subdivide nonlinear science into 
proper subfields, it exists has a whole. 

Nonlinear science has applications to a wide variety of fields, from 
mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry, to engineering, economics, and 
medicine. This is one of its most exciting aspects--that it brings researchers 
from many disciplines together with a common language.

[2.3] What is a dynamical system?

A dynamical system consists of an abstract phase space or state space, whose 
coordinates describe the dynamical state at any instant; and a dynamical rule 
which specifies the immediate future trend of all state variables, given only 
the present values of those same state variables. Mathematically, a dynamical 
system is described by an initial value problem. 

Dynamical systems are "deterministic" if there is a unique consequent to every 
state, and "stochastic" or "random" if there is more than one consequent 
chosen from some probability distribution (the "perfect" coin toss has two 
consequents with equal probability for each initial state). Most of nonlinear 
science--and everything in this FAQ--deals with deterministic systems.

A dynamical system can have discrete or continuous time. The discrete case is 
defined by a map, z_1 = f(z_0), that gives the state z_1 resulting from the 
initial state z_0 at the next time value. The continuous case is defined by a 
"flow", z(t) = \phi_t(z_0), which gives the state at time t, given that the 
state was z_0 at time 0. A smooth flow can be differentiated w.r.t. time to 
give a differential equation, dz/dt = F(z). In this case we call F(z) a 
"vector field," it gives a vector pointing in the direction of the velocity at 
every point in phase space.

[2.4] What is phase space?    

Phase space is the collection of possible states of a dynamical system. A 
phase space can be finite (e.g. for the ideal coin toss, we have two states 
heads and tails), countably infinite (e.g. state variables are integers), or 
uncountably infinite (e.g. state variables are real numbers). Implicit in the 
notion is that a particular state in phase space specifies the system 
completely; it is all we need to know about the system to have complete 
knowledge of the immediate future. Thus the phase space of the planar pendulum 
is two-dimensional, consisting of the position (angle) and velocity. According 
to Newton, specification of these two variables uniquely determines the 
subsequent motion of the pendulum.

Note that if we have a non-autonomous system, where the map or vector field 
depends explicitly on time (e.g. a model for plant growth depending on solar 
flux), then according to our definition of phase space, we must include time 
as a phase space coordinate--since one must specify a specific time (e.g. 3PM 
on Tuesday) to know the subsequent motion. Thus dz/dt = F(z,t) is a dynamical 
system on the phase space consisting of (z,t), with the addition of the new 
dynamics dt/dt = 1.

The path in phase space traced out by a solution of an initial value problem 
is called an orbit or trajectory of the dynamical system. If the state 
variables take real values in a continuum, the orbit of a continuous-time 
system is a curve, while the orbit of a discrete-time system is a sequence of 
points.

[2.5] What is a degree of freedom?

The notion of "degrees of freedom" as it is used for 
<http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Hamilton/> Hamiltonian systems means 
one canonical conjugate pair, a configuration, q, and its conjugate momentum 
p. Hamiltonian systems (sometimes mistakenly identified with the notion of 
conservative systems) always have such pairs of variables, and so the phase 
space is even dimensional.

In the study of dissipative systems the term "degree of freedom" is often used 
differently, to mean a single coordinate dimension of the phase space. This 
can lead to confusion, and it is advisable to check which meaning of the term 
is intended in a particular context.

Those with a physics background generally prefer to stick with the Hamiltonian 
definition of the term "degree of freedom." For a more general system the 
proper term is "order" which is equal to the dimension of the phase space.

Note that a  dynamical system with N d.o.f. Hamiltonian nominally moves in a 
2N dimensional phase space. However, if H(q,p) is time independent, then 
energy is conserved, and therefore the motion is really on a 2N-1 dimensional 
energy surface, H(q,p) = E. Thus e.g. the planar, circular restricted 3 body 
problem is 2 d.o.f., and motion is on the 3D energy surface of constant 
"Jacobi constant." It can be reduced to a 2D area preserving map by Poincare 
section (see [2.6]).

If the Hamiltonian is time dependent, then we generally say it has an 
additional 1/2 degree of freedom, since this adds one dimension to the phase 
space. (i.e. 1 1/2 d.o.f. means three variables, q, p and t, and energy is no 
longer conserved).

[2.6] What is a map?     

A map is simply a function, f, on the phase space that gives the next state, 
f(z) (the image), of the system given its current state, z. (Often you will 
find the notation z' = f(z), where the prime means the next point, not the 
derivative.)

Now a function must have a single value for each state, but there could be 
several different states that give rise to the same image. Maps that allow 
every state in the phase space to be accessed (onto) and which have precisely 
one pre-image for each state (one-to-one) are invertible. If in addition the 
map and its inverse are continuous (with respect to the phase space coordinate 
z), then it is called a homeomorphism. A homeomorphism that has at least one 
continuous derivative (w.r.t. z) and a continuously differentiable inverse is 
a diffeomorphism.

Iteration of a map means repeatedly applying the map to the consequents of the 
previous application. Thus we get a sequence
                                                         n
                        z  = f(z   )  = f(f(z   )...) = f (z )
                         n      n-1          n-2            0

This sequence is the orbit or trajectory of the dynamical system with initial 
condition z_0.

[2.7] How are maps related to flows (differential equations)?   

Every differential equation gives rise to a map, the time one map, defined by 
advancing the flow one unit of time. This map may or may not be useful. If the 
differential equation contains a term or terms periodic in time, then the time 
T map (where T is the period) is very useful--it is an example of a Poincare 
section. The time T map in a system with periodic terms is also called a 
stroboscopic map, since we are effectively looking at the location in phase 
space with a stroboscope tuned to the period T. This map is useful because it 
permits us to dispense with time as a phase space coordinate: the remaining 
coordinates describe the state completely so long as we agree to consider the 
same instant within every period.

In autonomous systems (no time-dependent terms in the equations), it may also 
be possible to define a Poincare section and again reduce the phase space 
dimension by one. Here the Poincare section is defined not by a fixed time 
interval, but by successive times when an orbit crosses a fixed surface in 
phase space. (Surface here means a manifold of dimension one less than the 
phase space dimension).

However, not every flow has a global Poincare section (e.g. any flow with an 
equilibrium point), which would need to be transverse to every possible orbit.

Maps arising from stroboscopic sampling or Poincare section of a flow are 
necessarily invertible, because the flow has a unique solution through any 
point in phase space--the solution is unique both forward and backward in 
time. However, noninvertible maps can be relevant to differential equations: 
Poincare maps are sometimes very well approximated by noninvertible maps. For 
example, the Henon map (x,y) -> (-y-a+x^2,bx) with small |b| is close to the 
logistic map, x -> -a+x^2.

It is often (though not always) possible to go backwards, from an invertible 
map to a differential equation having the map as its Poincare map. This is 
called a suspension of the map. One can also do this procedure approximately 
for maps that are close to the identity, giving a flow that approximates the 
map to some order. This is extremely useful in bifurcation theory.

Note that any numerical solution procedure for a differential initial value 
problem which uses discrete time steps in the approximation is effectively a 
map. This is not a trivial observation; it helps explain for example why a 
continuous-time system which should not exhibit chaos may have numerical 
solutions which do--see [2.15].

[2.8] What is an attractor?     

Informally an attractor is simply a state into which a system settles (thus 
dissipation is needed). Thus in the long term, a dissipative dynamical system 
may settle into an attractor.
        Interestingly enough, there is still some controversy in the mathematics 
community as to an appropriate definition of this term. Most people adopt the 
definition
     Attractor: A set in the phase space that has a neighborhood in which 
     every point stays nearby and approaches the attractor as time goes to 
     infinity.
Thus imagine a ball rolling inside of a bowl. If we start the ball at a point 
in the bowl with a velocity too small to reach the edge of the bowl, then 
eventually the ball will settle down to the bottom of the bowl with zero 
velocity: thus this equilibrium point is an attractor. The neighborhood of 
points that eventually approach the attractor is the basin of attraction for 
the attractor. In our example the basin is the set of all configurations 
corresponding to the ball in the bowl, and for each such point all small 
enough velocities (it is a set in the four dimensional phase space [2.4]).
        Attractors can be simple, as the previous example. Another example of an 
attractor is a limit cycle, which is a periodic orbit that is attracting 
(limit cycles can also be repelling). More surprisingly, attractors can be 
chaotic (see [2.9]) and/or strange (see [2.12]).
        The boundary of a basin of attraction is often a very interesting object 
since it distinguishes between different types of motion. Typically a basin 
boundary is a saddle orbit, or such an orbit and its stable manifold. A crisis 
is the change in an attractor when its basin boundary is destroyed.
        An alternative definition of attractor is sometimes used because there 
are systems that have sets that attract most, but not all, initial conditions 
in their neighborhood (such phenomena is sometimes called riddling of the 
basin). Thus, Milnor defines an attractor as a set for which a positive 
measure (probability, if you like) of initial conditions in a neighborhood are 
asymptotic to the set.

[2.9] What is chaos?    

It has been said that "Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion 
in our minds." (George Santayana, thanks to Fred Klingener for finding this). 
However, the mathematical definition is, roughly speaking, 
Chaos: effectively unpredictable long time behavior arising in a 

deterministic dynamical system because of sensitivity to initial 
conditions.
It must be emphasized that a deterministic dynamical system is perfectly 
predictable given perfect knowledge of the initial condition, and further is 
in practice always predictable in the short term. The key to long-term 
unpredictability is a property known as sensitivity to (or sensitive 
dependence on) initial conditions.

For a dynamical system to be chaotic it must have a 'large' set of initial 
conditions which are highly unstable. No matter how precisely you measure the 
initial condition in these systems, your prediction of its subsequent motion 
goes radically wrong after a short time. Typically (see [2.14] for one 
definition of 'typical'), the predictability horizon grows only 
logarithmically with the precision of measurement (for positive Lyapunov 
exponents, see [2.11]). Thus for each increase in precision by a factor of 10, 
say, you may only be able to predict two more time units.

More precisely: A map f is chaotic on a compact invariant set S if
        (i) f is transitive on S (there is a point x whose orbit is dense in S), and
        (ii) f exhibits sensitive dependence on S (see [2.10]).
To these two requirements #DevaneyDevaney adds the requirement that periodic 
points are dense in S, but this doesn't seem to be really in the spirit of the 
notion, and is probably better treated as a theorem (very difficult and very 
important), and not part of the definition.

Usually we would like the set S to be a large set. It is too much to hope for 
except in special examples that S be the entire phase space. If the dynamical 
system is dissipative then we hope that S is an attractor (see [2.8]) with a 
large basin. However, this need not be the case--we can have a chaotic saddle, 
an orbit that has some unstable directions as well as stable directions.

As a consequence of long-term unpredictability, time series from chaotic 
systems may appear irregular and disorderly. However, chaos is definitely not 
(as the name might suggest) complete disorder; it is disorder in a 
deterministic dynamical system, which is always predictable for short times.

The notion of chaos seems to conflict with that attributed to Laplace: given 
precise knowledge of the initial conditions, it should be possible to predict 
the future of the universe. However, Laplace's dictum is certainly true for 
any deterministic system, recall [2.3]. The main consequence of chaotic motion 
is that given imperfect knowledge, the predictability horizon in a 
deterministic system is much shorter than one might expect, due to the 
exponential growth of errors. The belief that small errors should have small 
consequences was perhaps engendered by the success of Newton's mechanics 
applied to planetary motions. Though these happen to be regular on human 
historic time scales, they are chaotic on the 5 million year time scale (see 
e.g. "Newton's Clock", by Ivars Peterson (1993 W.H. Freeman).

[2.10] What is sensitive dependence on initial conditions?    

Consider a boulder precariously perched on the top of an ideal hill. The 
slightest push will cause the boulder to roll down one side of the hill or the 
other: the subsequent behavior depends sensitively on the direction of the 
push--and the push can be arbitrarily small.  Of course, it is of great 
importance to you which direction the boulder will go if you are standing at 
the bottom of the hill on one side or the other!

Sensitive dependence is the equivalent behavior for every initial condition--
every point in the phase space is effectively perched on the top of a hill.

More precisely a set S exhibits sensitive dependence if there is an r such 
that for any epsilon > 0 and for each x in S, there is a y such that |x - y| < 
epsilon, and |x_n - y_n| > r for some n > 0. Then there is a fixed distance r 
(say 1), such that no matter how precisely one specifies an initial state 
there are nearby states that eventually get a distance r away.

Note: sensitive dependence does not require exponential growth of 
perturbations (positive Lyapunov exponent), but this is typical (see Q[2.14]) 
for chaotic systems. Note also that we most definitely do not require ALL 
nearby initial points diverge--generically [2.14] this does not happen--some 
nearby points may converge. (We may modify our hilltop analogy slightly and 
say that every point in phase space acts like a high mountain pass.) Finally, 
the words "initial conditions" are a bit misleading: a typical small 
disturbance introduced at any time will grow similarly. Think of "initial" as 
meaning "a time when a disturbance or error is introduced," not necessarily 
time zero.

[2.11] What are Lyapunov exponents?    
(Thanks to Ronnie Mainieri & Fred Klingener for contributing to this answer)

The hardest thing to get right about Lyapunov exponents is the spelling of 
Lyapunov, which you will variously find as Liapunov, Lyapunof and even 
Liapunoff. Of course Lyapunov is really spelled in the Cyrillic alphabet: 
(Lambda)(backwards r)(pi)(Y)(H)(0)(B). Now that there is an ANSI standard of 
transliteration for Cyrillic, we expect all references to converge on the 
version Lyapunov.

Lyapunov was born in Russia in 6 June 1857. He was greatly influenced by 
Chebyshev and was a student with Markov. He was also a passionate man: 
Lyapunov shot himself the day his wife died. He died 3 Nov. 1918, three days 
later. According to the request on a note he left, Lyapunov was buried with 
his wife. [biographical data from a biography by A. T. Grigorian].

Lyapunov left us with more than just a simple note. He left a collection of 
papers on the equilibrium shape of rotating liquids, on probability, and on 
the stability of low-dimensional dynamical systems. It was from his 
dissertation that the notion of Lyapunov exponent emerged. Lyapunov was 
interested in showing how to discover if a solution to a dynamical system is 
stable or not for all times. The usual method of studying stability, i.e. 
linear stability, was not good enough, because if you waited long enough the 
small errors due to linearization would pile up and make the approximation 
invalid. Lyapunov developed concepts (now called Lyapunov Stability) to 
overcome these difficulties.

Lyapunov exponents measure the rate at which nearby orbits converge or 
diverge.Ê There are as many Lyapunov exponents as there are dimensions in the 
state space of the system, but the largest is usually the most important. 
Roughly speaking the (maximal) Lyapunov exponent is the time constant, lambda, 
in the expression for the distance between two nearby orbits, exp(lambda * 
t).Ê If lambda is negative, then the orbits converge in time, and the 
dynamical system is insensitive to initial conditions.Ê However, if lambda is 
positive, then the distance between nearby orbits grows exponentially in time, 
and the system exhibits sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

There are basically two ways to compute Lyapunov exponents. In one way one 
chooses two nearby points, evolves them in time, measuring the growth rate of 
the distance between them. This is useful when one has a time series, but has 
the disadvantage that the growth rate is really not a local effect as the 
points separate. A better way is to measure the growth rate of tangent vectors 
to a given orbit.

More precisely, consider a map f in an m dimensional phase space, and its 
derivative matrix Df(x). Let v be a tangent vector at the point x. Then we 
define a function
                              1          n
        L(x,v)  =    lim     --- ln |( Df (x)v )|
                   n -> oo    n
Now the Multiplicative Ergodic Theorem of Oseledec states that this limit 
exists for almost all points x and all tangent vectors v. There are at most m 
distinct values of L as we let v range over the tangent space. These are the 
Lyapunov exponents at x.

For more information on computing the exponents see

        Wolf, A., J. B. Swift, et al. (1985). "Determining Lyapunov Exponents from a 
Time Series." Physica D 16: 285-317.
        Eckmann, J.-P., S. O. Kamphorst, et al. (1986). "Liapunov exponents from 
time series." Phys. Rev. A 34: 4971-4979.

[2.12] What is a Strange Attractor?    
        Before Chaos (BC?), the only known attractors (see [2.8]) were fixed 
points, periodic orbits (limit cycles), and invariant tori (quasiperiodic 
orbits). In fact the famous Poincare-Bendixson theorem states that for a pair 
of first order differential equations,  only fixed points and limit cycles can 
occur (there is no chaos in 2D flows). 
        In a famous paper in 1963, Ed Lorenz discovered that simple systems of 
three differential equations can have complicated attractors. The Lorenz 
attractor (with its butterfly wings reminding us of sensitive dependence (see 
[2.10])) is the "icon" of chaos 
<http://pineapple.apmaths.uwo.ca/~blair/lorenzintro.html>. Lorenz showed that 
his attractor was chaotic, since it exhibited sensitive dependence. Moreover, 
his attractor is also "strange," which means that it is a fractal (see [3.2]).
        The term strange attractor was introduced by Ruelle and Takens in 1970 
in their discussion of a scenario for the onset of turbulence in fluid flow. 
They noted that when periodic motion goes unstable (with three or more modes), 
the typical (see [2.14]) result will be a geometrically strange object.
        Unfortunately, the term strange attractor is often used for any chaotic 
attractor. However, the term should be reserved for attractors that are 
"geometrically" strange, e.g. fractal. One can have chaotic attractors that 
are not strange (a trivial example would be to take a system like the cat map, 
which has the whole plane as a chaotic set, and add a third dimension which is 
simply contracting onto the plane). There are also strange, nonchaotic 
attractors (see Grebogi, C., et al. (1984). "Strange Attractors that are not 
Chaotic." Physica D 13: 261-268).

[2.13] Can computers simulate chaos?   

Strictly speaking, chaos cannot occur on computers because they deal with 
finite sets of numbers. Thus the initial condition is always precisely known, 
and computer experiments are perfectly predictable, in principle. In 
particular because of the finite size, every trajectory computed will 
eventually have to repeat (an thus be eventually periodic). On the other hand, 
computers can effectively simulate chaotic behavior for quite long times (just 
so long as the discreteness is not noticeable). In particular if one uses 
floating point numbers in double precision to iterate a map on the unit 
square, then there are about 10^28 different points in the phase space, and 
one would expect the "typical" chaotic orbit to have a period of about 10^14 
(this square root of the number of points estimate is given by Rannou for 
random diffeomorphisms and does not really apply to floating point operations, 
but nonetheless the period should be a big number). See, e.g.,

        Earn, D. J. D. and S. Tremaine, "Exact Numerical Studies of Hamiltonian 
Maps: Iterating without Roundoff Error," Physica D 56, 1-22 (1992). 
        Binder, P. M. and R. V. Jensen, "Simulating Chaotic Behavior with Finite 
State Machines," Phys. Rev. 34A, 4460-3 (1986).
        Rannou, F., "Numerical Study of Discrete Plane Area-Preserving Mappings," 
Astron. and Astrophys. 31, 289-301 (1974).

[2.14] What is generic?
(Thanks to Hawley Rising for contributing to this answer)

Generic in dynamical systems is intended to convey "usual" or, more properly, 
"observable". Roughly speaking, a property is generic over a class if any 
system in the class can be modified ever so slightly (perturbed), into one 
with that property.

The formal definition is done in the language of topology: Consider the class 
to be a space of systems, and suppose it has a topology (some notion of a 
neighborhood, or an open set). A subset of this space is dense if its closure 
(the subset plus the limits of all sequences in the subset) is the whole 
space. It is open and dense if it is also an open set (union of 
neighborhoods). A set is countable if it can be put into 1-1 correspondence 
with the counting numbers. A countable intersection of open dense sets is the 
intersection of a countable number of open dense sets. If all such 
intersections in a space are also dense, then the space is called a Baire 
space, which basically means it is big enough. If we have such a Baire space 
of dynamical systems, and there is a property which is true on a countable 
intersection of open dense sets, then that property is generic.

If all this sounds too complicated, think of it as a precise way of defining a 
set which is near every system in the collection (dense), which isn't too big 
(need not have any "regions" where the property is true for every system). 
Generic is much weaker than "almost everywhere" (occurs with probability 1), 
in fact, it is possible to have generic properties which occur with 
probability zero. But it is as strong a property as one can define 
topologically, without having to have a property hold true in a region, or 
talking about measure (probability), which isn't a topological property (a 
property preserved by a continuous function).

[2.15] What is the minimum phase space dimension for chaos?    

This is a slightly confusing topic, since the answer depends on the type of 
system considered. First consider a flow (or system of differential 
equations). In this case the Poincare-Bendixson theorem tells us that there is 
no chaos in one or two-dimensional phase spaces. Chaos is possible in three-
dimensional flows--standard examples such as the Lorenz equations are indeed 
three-dimensional, and there are mathematical 3D flows that are provably 
chaotic (e.g. the 'solenoid').

Note: if the flow is non-autonomous then time is a phase space coordinate, so 
a system with two physical variables + time becomes three-dimensional, and 
chaos is possible (i.e. Forced second-order oscillators do exhibit chaos.)

For maps, it is possible to have chaos in one dimension, but only if the map 
is not invertible. A prominent example is the Logistic map
                    x' = f(x) = rx(1-x).
This is provably chaotic for r = 4, and many other values of r as well (see 
e.g. #DevaneyDevaney). Note that every point x < f(1/2) has two preimages, so 
this map is not invertible.

For homeomorphisms, we must have at least two-dimensional phase space for 
chaos. This is equivalent to the flow result, since a three-dimensional flow 
gives rise to a two-dimensional homeomorphism by Poincare section (see [2.7]).

Note that a numerical algorithm for a differential equation is a map, because 
time on the computer is necessarily discrete. Thus numerical solutions of two 
and even one dimensional systems of ordinary differential equations may 
exhibit chaos. Usually this results from choosing the size of the time step 
too large. For example Euler discretization of the Logistic differential 
equation, dx/dt = rx(1-x), is equivalent to the logistic map. See e.g. S. 
Ushiki, "Central difference scheme and chaos," Physica 4D (1982) 407-424.





                                                                                           [3]     Applications and Advanced Theory
[3.1] What are complex systems?    
(Thanks to Troy Shinbrot for contributing to this answer)

Complex systems are spatially and/or temporally extended nonlinear systems 
characterized by collective properties associated with the system as a whole--
and that are different from the characteristic behaviors of the constituent 
parts.

While, chaos is the study of how simple systems can generate complicated 
behavior, complexity is the study of how complicated systems can generate 
simple behavior. An example of complexity is the synchronization of biological 
systems ranging from fireflies to neurons (e.g. Matthews, PC, Mirollo, RE & 
Strogatz, SH "Dynamics of a large system of coupled nonlinear oscillators," 
Physica 52D (1991) 293-331). In these problems, many individual systems 
conspire to produce a single collective rhythm.

The notion of complex systems has received lots of popular press, but it is 
not really clear as of yet if there is a "theory" about a "concept". We are 
withholding judgment.

        See http://members.aol.com/calresco/index.htm The Complexity & 
        Artificial Life Web Site 
        See http://members.aol.com/calresco/sos/sosfaq.htm The self-organized 
         systems FAQ

[3.2] What are fractals?

One way to define "fractal" is as a negation: a fractal is a set that does not 
look like a Euclidean object (point, line, plane, etc.) no matter how closely 
you look at it. Imagine focusing in on a smooth curve (imagine a piece of 
string in space)--if you look at any piece of it closely enough it eventually 
looks like a straight line (ignoring the fact that for a real piece of string 
it will soon look like a cylinder and eventually you will see the fibers, then 
the atoms, etc.). A fractal, like the Koch Snowflake, which is topologically 
one dimensional, never looks like a straight line, no matter how closely you 
look. There are indentations, like bays in a coastline; look closer and the 
bays have inlets, closer still the inlets have subinlets, and so on. Simple 
examples of fractals include Cantor sets (see [3.5], Sierpinski curves, the 
Mandelbrot set  and (almost surely) the Lorenz attractor (see [2.12]). 
Fractals also approximately describe many real-world objects, such as 
http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/~cahalan/FractalClouds/clouds, mountains, 
turbulence, coastlines, roots and branches of trees and veins and lungs of 
animals.

"Fractal" is a term which has undergone refinement of definition by a lot of 
people, but was first coined by B. Mandelbrot, 
<http://physics.hallym.ac.kr/reference/physicist/Mandelbrot.html>,  and 
defined as a set with fractional (non-integer) dimension (Hausdorff dimension, 
see [3.4]). Mandelbrot defines a fractal in the following way:

    A geometric figure or natural object is said to be fractal if it
    combines the following characteristics: (a) its parts have the same
    form or structure as the whole, except that they are at a different
    scale and may be slightly deformed; (b) its form is extremely irregular,
    or extremely interupted or fragmented, and remains so, whatever the scale
    of examination; (c) it contains "distinct elements" whose scales are very
    varied and cover a large range." (Les Objets Fractales 1989, p.154) 

See the extensive FAQ from sci.fractals at
        <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/fractal-faq>

[3.3] What do fractals have to do with chaos?                                 
 
Often chaotic dynamical systems exhibit fractal structures in phase space. 
However, there is no direct relation. There are chaotic systems that have 
nonfractal limit sets (e.g. Arnold's cat map) and fractal structures that can 
arise in nonchaotic dynamics (see e.g. Grebogi, C., et al. (1984). "Strange 
Attractors that are not Chaotic." Physica 13D: 261-268.)

[3.4] What are topological and fractal dimension?

See the fractal FAQ:
        <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/fractal-faq>

[3.5] What is a Cantor set?
(Thanks to Pavel Pokorny for contributing to this answer)

A Cantor set is a surprising set of points that is both infinite (uncountably 
so, see [2.14]) and yet diffuse. It is a simple example of a fractal, and 
occurs, for example as the strange repellor in the logistic map (see [2.15]) 
when r>4. The standard example of a Cantor set is the "middle thirds" set 
constructed on the interval between 0 and 1. First, remove the middle third. 
Two intervals remain, each one of length one third. From each remaining 
interval remove the middle third. Repeat the last step infinitely many times. 
What remains is a Cantor set.

More generally (and abstrusely) a Cantor set is defined topologically as a 
nonempty, compact set which is perfect (every point is a limit point) and 
totally disconnected (every pair of points in the set are contained in 
disjoint covering neighborhoods).

See also
        <http://www.shu.edu/html/teaching/math/reals/topo/defs/cantor.html>
        <http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~carother/cantor/Cantor1.html>
        <http://mizar.uw.bialystok.pl/JFM/Vol7/cantor_1.html>

Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor was born 3 March 1845 in St Petersburg, 
Russia, and died 6 Jan 1918 in Halle, Germany. To learn more about him see:
        <http://turnbull.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Cantor.html>
        <http://www.shu.edu/html/teaching/math/reals/history/cantor.html>

To read more about the Cantor function (a function that is continuous, 
differentiable, increasing, non-constant, with a derivative that is zero 
everywhere except on a set with length zero) see
<http://www.shu.edu/~wachsmut/reals/cont/fp_cantr.html>
[3.6] What is quantum chaos?                                            
(Thanks to Leon Poon for contributing to this answer)

 According to the correspondence principle, there is a limit where classical 
behavior as described by Hamilton's equations becomes similar, in some 
suitable sense, to quantum behavior as described by the appropriate wave 
equation. Formally, one can take this limit to be h -> 0, where h is Planck's 
constant; alternatively, one can look at successively higher energy levels, 
etc. Such limits are referred to as "semiclassical". It has been found that 
the semiclassical limit can be highly nontrivial when the classical problem is 
chaotic. The study of how quantum systems, whose classical counterparts are 
chaotic, behave in the semiclassical limit has been called quantum chaos. More 
generally, these considerations also apply to elliptic partial differential 
equations that are physically unrelated to quantum considerations. For 
example, the same questions arise in relating classical acoustic waves to 
their corresponding ray equations. Among recent results in quantum chaos is a 
prediction relating the chaos in the classical problem to the statistics of 
energy-level spacings in the semiclassical quantum regime.

Classical chaos can be used to analyze such ostensibly quantum systems as the 
hydrogen atom, where classical predictions of microwave ionization thresholds 
agree with experiments. See Koch, P. M. and K. A. H. van Leeuwen (1995). 
"Importance of Resonances in Microwave Ionization of Excited Hydrogen Atoms." 
Physics Reports 255: 289-403.

See also: <http://sagar.cas.neu.edu/qchaos/qc.html>

[3.7] How do I know if my data are deterministic?
(Thanks to Justin Lipton for contributing to this answer)

How can I tell if my data is deterministic? This is a very tricky problem. It 
is difficult because in practice no time series consists of pure 'signal.' 
There will always be some form of corrupting noise, even if it is present as 
roundoff or truncation error or as a result of finite arithmetic or 
quantization. Thus any real time series, even if mostly deterministic, will be 
a stochastic processes

All methods for distinguishing deterministic and stochastic processes rely on 
the fact that a deterministic system will always evolve in the same way from a 
given starting point. Thus given a time series that we are testing for 
determinism we
        (1) pick a test state
        (2) search the time series for a similar or 'nearby' state and
        (3) compare their respective time evolution.

Define the error as the difference between the time evolution of the 'test' 
state and the time evolution of the nearby state. A deterministic system will 
have an error that either remains small (stable, regular solution) or increase 
exponentially with time (chaotic solution). A stochastic system will have a 
randomly distributed error.

Essentially all measures of determinism taken from time series rely upon 
finding the closest states to a given 'test' state (i.e., correlation 
dimension, Lyapunov exponents, etc.). To define the state of a system one 
typically relies on phase space embedding methods, see [3.14].

Typically one chooses an embedding dimension, and investigates the propagation 
of the error between two nearby states. If the error looks random, one 
increases the dimension. If you can increase the dimension to obtain a 
deterministic looking error, then you are done. Though it may sound simple it 
is not really! One complication is that as the dimension increases the search 
for a nearby state requires a lot more computation time and a lot of data (the 
amount of data required increases exponentially with embedding dimension) to 
find a suitably close candidate. If the embedding dimension (number of 
measures per state) is chosen too small (less than the 'true' value) 
deterministic data can appear to be random but in theory there is no problem 
choosing the dimension too large--the method will work. Practically, anything 
approaching about 10 dimensions is considered so large that a stochastic 
description is probably more suitable and convenient anyway.

See e.g.,
        Sugihara, G. and R. M. May (1990). "Nonlinear Forecasting as a Way of 
      Distinguishing Chaos from Measurement Error in Time Series." Nature 
        344: 734-740.

[3.8] What is the control of chaos?                                                    

Control of chaos has come to mean the two things:
        (1) stabilization of unstable periodic orbits,
        (2) use of recurrence to allow stabilization to be applied locally.
Thus term "control of chaos" is somewhat of a misnomer--but the name has 
stuck. The ideas for controlling chaos originated in the work of Hubler 
followed by the Maryland Group.

        Hubler, A. W. (1989). "Adaptive Control of Chaotic Systems." Helv. Phys. 
        Acta 62: 343-346.
        Ott, E., C. Grebogi, et al. (1990). "Controlling Chaos." Physical Review 
         Letters 64(11): 1196-1199.
         <http://www-chaos.umd.edu/publications/abstracts.html#prl64.1196>

The idea that chaotic systems can in fact be controlled may be 
counterintuitive--after all they are unpredictable in the long term. 
Nevertheless, numerous theorists have independently developed methods which 
can be applied to chaotic systems, and many experimentalists have demonstrated 
that physical chaotic systems respond well to both simple and sophisticated 
control strategies. Applications have been proposed in such diverse areas of 
research as communications, electronics, physiology, epidemiology, fluid 
mechanics and chemistry.

The great bulk of this work has been restricted to low-dimensional systems; 
more recently, a few researchers have proposed control techniques for 
application to high- or infinite-dimensional systems. The literature on the 
subject of the control of chaos is quite voluminous; nevertheless several 
reviews of the literature are available, including:

        Shinbrot, T. Ott, E., Grebogi, C. & Yorke, J.A., "Using Small Perturbations 
       to Control Chaos," Nature, 363 (1993) 411-7.
        Shinbrot, T., "Chaos: Unpredictable yet Controllable?" Nonlin. Sciences 
       Today, 3:2 (1993) 1-8.
        Shinbrot, T., "Progress in the Control of Chaos," Advance in Physics (in 
       press).
        Ditto, WL & Pecora, LM "Mastering Chaos," Scientific American (Aug. 1993), 
       78-84.
        Chen, G. & Dong, X, "From Chaos to Order -- Perspectives and Methodologies 
       in Controlling Chaotic Nonlinear Dynamical Systems," Int. J. Bif. & Chaos 
       3 (1993) 1363-1409.

It is generically quite difficult to control high dimensional systems; an 
alternative approach is to use control to reduce the dimension before applying 
one of the above techniques. This approach is in its infancy; see:

     Auerbach, D., Ott, E., Grebogi, C., and Yorke, J.A. "Controlling Chaos in
   High Dimensional Systems," Phys. Rev. Lett. 69  (1992) 3479-82
   <http://www-chaos.umd.edu/publications/abstracts.html#prl69.3479>

[3.9] How can I build a chaotic circuit?
(Thanks to Justin Lipton and Jose Korneluk for contributing to this answer)

There are many different physical systems which display chaos, dripping 
faucets, water wheels, oscillating magnetic ribbons etc. but the most simple 
systems which can be easily implemented are chaotic circuits. In fact an 
electronic circuit was one of the first demonstrations of chaos which showed 
that chaos is not just a mathematical abstraction. Leon Chua designed the 
circuit 1983.

The circuit he designed, now known as Chua's circuit, consists of a piecewise 
linear resistor as its nonlinearity (making analysis very easy) plus two 
capacitors, one resistor and one inductor--the circuit is unforced 
(autonomous). In fact the chaotic aspects (bifurcation values, Lyapunov 
exponents, various dimensions etc.) of this circuit have been extensively 
studied in the literature both experimentally and theoretically. It is 
extremely easy to build and presents beautiful attractors (see [2.8]) (the 
most famous known as the double scroll attractor) that can be displayed on a 
CRO.

For more information on building such a circuit try:                                         

        Matsumoto T. and Chua L.O. and Komuro M. "Birth and Death of the Double 
      Scroll" Physica D24 97-124, 1987.
        Kennedy M. P., "Robust OP Amp Realization of Chua's Circuit", Frequenz 
      46, no. 3-4, 1992
        Madan, R. A., Chua's Circuit: A paradigm for chaos, ed. R. A. Madan, 
      Singapore: World Scientific, 1993.
        Pecora, L. and Carroll, T. Nonlinear Dynamics in Circuits, Singapore: 
      World Scientific, 1995.
        Nonlinear Dynamics of Electronic Systems, Proceedings of the Workshop 
      NDES 1993, A.C.Davies and W.Schwartz, eds., World Scientific, 1994, 
      ISBN 981-02-1769-2.
        Parker, T.S., and L.O.Chua, Practical Numerical Algorithms for Chaotic 
      Systems, Springer-Verlag, 1989, ISBN's: 0-387-96689-7 
      and 3-540-96689-7.

And see
        <ftp://vdp.ucd.ie/pub>  Chua's Circuit Programs

[3.10] What are simple experiments to demonstrate chaos?                                

 There are many "chaos toys" on the market. Most consist of some sort of 
pendulum that is forced by an electromagnet. One can of course build a simple 
double pendulum to observe beautiful chaotic behavior see 
<http://www.ibm.com/Stretch/EOS/chaos.html> and 
<http://www.phys.ttu.edu/~peters/pend.htm>. My favorite double pendulum 
consists of two identical planar pendula, so that you can demonstrate 
sensitive dependence [2.10], for a Java applet simulation see 
<http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~mkwan/pendulum/pendulum.html>. Another cute toy is 
the "Space Circle" that you can find in many airport gift shops. This is 
discussed in the article:

        A. Wolf & T. Bessoir, Diagnosing Chaos in the Space Circle, Physica 50D, 
       1991.

One of the simplest chemical systems that shows chaos is the Belousov- 
Zhabotinsky reaction. The book by Strogatz [4.1] has a good introduction to 
this subject, see also <http://taylor.mc.duke.edu/~rubin/rubin.html> for some 
more information. Chemical chaos is modeled (in a generic sense) by the 
"Brusselator" system of differential equations. See

  Nicolis, Gregoire & Prigogine, (1989) Exploring Complexity: An 
      Introduction W. H. Freeman 

The Chaotic waterwheel, while not so simple to build, is an exact realization 
of Lorenz famous equations. This is nicely discussed in Strogatz book [4.1] as 
well.

Billiard tables can exhibit chaotic motion, see 
<http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathland_3_3.html>, though it might be hard to 
see this next time you are in a bar, since a rectangular table is not chaotic!

[3.11] What is targeting?

To direct trajectories in chaotic systems, one can generically apply small 
perturbations; see:

        Shinbrot, T. Ott, E., Grebogi, C. & Yorke, J.A., "Using Small
      Perturbations to Control Chaos," Nature, 363 (1993) 411-7).

We are still awaiting a good answer to this question.

[3.12] What is time series analysis?                                        
(Thanks to Jim Crutchfield for contributing to this answer)

This is the application of dynamical systems techniques to a data series, 
usually obtained by "measuring" the value of a single observable as a function 
of time. The major tool in a dynamicist's toolkit is "delay coordinate 
embedding" which creates a phase space portrait from a single data series. It 
seems remarkable at first, but one can reconstruct a picture equivalent 
(topologically) to the full Lorenz attractor (see [2.12])in three-dimensional 
space by measuring only one of its coordinates, say x(t), and plotting the 
delay coordinates (x(t), x(t+h), x(t+2h)) for a fixed h.

It is important to emphasize that the idea of using derivatives or delay 
coordinates in time series modeling is nothing new. It goes back at least to 
the work of Yule, who in 1927 used an autoregressive (AR) model to make a 
predictive model for the sunspot cycle. AR models are nothing more than delay 
coordinates used with a linear model. Delays, derivatives, principal 
components, and a variety of other methods of reconstruction have been widely 
used in time series analysis since the early 50's, and are described in 
several hundred books. The new aspects raised by dynamical systems theory are 
(i) the implied geometric view of temporal behavior and (ii) the existence of 
"geometric invariants", such as dimension and Lyapunov exponents. The central 
question was not whether delay coordinates are useful for time series 
analysis, but rather whether reconstruction methods preserve the geometry and 
the geometric invariants of dynamical systems. (Packard, Crutchfield, Farmer & 
Shaw)

        G.U. Yule, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London A 226 (1927) p. 267.
        N.H. Packard, J.P. Crutchfield, J.D. Farmer, and R.S. Shaw, "Geometry
      from a time series", Phys. Rev. Lett. 45, no. 9 (1980) 712.
        F. Takens, "Detecting strange attractors in fluid turbulence", in: Dynamical 
      Systems and Turbulence, eds. D. Rand and L.-S. Young 
      (Springer, Berlin, 1981)
        Abarbanel, H.D.I., Brown, R., Sidorowich, J.J., and Tsimring, L.Sh.T. 
      "The analysis of observed chaotic data in physical systems",  
      Rev. Modern Physics 65 (1993) 1331-1392.
        D. Kaplan and L. Glass (1995). Understanding Nonlinear Dynamics, 
      Springer-Verlag <http://www.cnd.mcgill.ca/Understanding/>

[3.13] Is there chaos in the stock market?                                  
(Thanks to Bruce Stewart for Contributions to this answer)

In order to address this question, we must first agree what we mean by chaos, 
see [2.9].
In dynamical systems theory, chaos means irregular fluctuations in a 
deterministic system (see [2.3] and [3.7]). This means the system behaves 
irregularly because of its own internal logic, not because of random forces 
acting from outside. Of course, if you define your dynamical system to be the 
socio-economic behavior of the entire planet, nothing acts randomly from 
outside (except perhaps the occasional meteor), so you have a dynamical 
system. But its dimension (number of state variables--see [2.4]) is vast, and 
there is no hope of exploiting the determinism. This is high-dimensional 
chaos, which might just as well be truly random behavior. In this sense, the 
stock market is chaotic, but who cares?

To be useful, economic chaos would have to involve some kind of collective 
behavior which can be fully described by a small number of variables. In the 
lingo, the system would have to be self-organizing, resulting in low- 
dimensional chaos. If this turns out to be true, then you can exploit the low- 
dimensional chaos to make short-term predictions. The problem is to identify 
the state variables which characterize the collective modes. Furthermore, 
having limited the number of state variables, many events now become external 
to the system, that is, the system is operating in a changing environment, 
which makes the problem of system identification very difficult.

If there were such collective modes of fluctuation, market players would 
probably know about them; economic theory says that if many people recognized 
these patterns, the actions they would take to exploit them would quickly 
nullify the patterns. Market participants would probably not need to know 
chaos theory for this to happen. Therefore if these patterns exist, they must 
be hard to recognize because they do not emerge clearly from the sea of noise 
caused by individual actions; or the patterns last only a very short time 
following some upset to the markets; or both.

A number of people and groups have tried to find these patterns. So far the 
published results are negative. There are also commercial ventures involving 
prominent researchers in the field of chaos; we have no idea how well they are 
succeeding, or indeed whether they are looking for low-dimensional chaos. In 
fact it seems unlikely that markets remain stationary long enough to identify 
a chaotic attractor (see [2.12]). If you know chaos theory and would like to 
devote yourself to the rhythms of market trading, you might find a trading 
firm which will give you a chance to try your ideas. But don't expect them to 
give you a share of any profits you may make for them :-) !

In short, anyone who tells you about the secrets of chaos in the stock market 
doesn't know anything useful, and anyone who knows will not tell. It's an 
interesting question, but you're unlikely to find the answer.

On the other hand, one might ask a more general question: is market behavior 
adequately described by linear models, or are there signs of nonlinearity in 
financial market data? Here the prospect is more favorable. Time series 
analysis (see [3.14]) has been applied these tests to financial data; the 
results often indicate that nonlinear structure is present. See e.g. the book 
by Brock, Hsieh, LeBaron, "Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Instability", MIT 
Press, 1991; and an update by B. LeBaron, "Chaos and nonlinear forecastability 
in economics and finance," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 
Series A, vol 348, Sept 1994, pp 397-404. This approach does not provide a 
formula for making money, but it is stimulating some rethinking of economic 
modeling. A book by Richard M. Goodwin, "Chaotic Economic Dynamics," Oxford 
UP, 1990, begins to explore the implications for business cycles.

[3.14] What are solitons?                                                     

The process of obtaining a solution of a linear (constant coefficient) 
differential equations is simplified by the Fourier transform (it converts 
such an equation to an algebraic equation, and we all know that algebra is 
easier than calculus!); is there a counterpart which similarly simplifies 
nonlinear equations? The answer is No. Nonlinear equations are qualitatively 
more complex than linear equations, and a procedure which gives the dynamics 
as simply as for linear equations must contain a mistake. There are, however, 
exceptions to any rule.

Certain nonlinear differential equations can be fully solved by, e.g., the 
"inverse scattering method." Examples are the Korteweg-de Vries, nonlinear 
Schrodinger, and sine-Gordon equations. In these cases the real space maps, in 
a rather abstract way, to an inverse space, which is comprised of continuous 
and discrete parts and evolves linearly in time. The continuous part typically 
corresponds to radiation and the discrete parts to stable solitary waves, i.e. 
pulses, which are called solitons. The linear evolution of the inverse space 
means that solitons will emerge virtually unaffected from interactions with 
anything, giving them great stability.

More broadly, there is a wide variety of systems which support stable solitary 
waves through a balance of dispersion and nonlinearity. Though these systems 
may not be integrable as above, in many cases they are close to systems which 
are, and the solitary waves may share many of the stability properties of true 
solitons, especially that of surviving interactions with other solitary waves 
(mostly) unscathed. It is widely accepted to call these solitary waves 
solitons, albeit with qualifications.

Why solitons? Solitons are simply a fundamental nonlinear wave phenomenon. 
Many very basic linear systems with the addition of the simplest possible or 
first order nonlinearity support solitons; this universality means that 
solitons will arise in many important physical situations. Optical fibers can 
support solitons, which because of their great stability are an ideal medium 
for transmitting information. In a few years long distance telephone 
communications will likely be carried via solitons.

The soliton literature is by now vast. Two books which contain clear 
discussions of solitons as well as references to original papers are
        Alan C. Newell, Solitons in Mathematics and Physics, SIAM, Philadelphia,
      Penn. (1985)
        Mark J. Ablowitz, Solitons, nonlinear evolution equations and inverse
      scattering, Cambridge (1991).
        See  <http://www.ma.hw.ac.uk/solitons/>

[3.15] What is spatio-temporal chaos?

        Spatio-temporal chaos occurs when system of coupled dynamical systems 
gives rise to dynamical behavior that exhibits both spatial disorder (as in 
rapid decay of spatial correlations) and temporal disorder (as in nonzero 
Lyapunov exponents). This is an extremely active, and rather unsettled area of 
research. For an introduction see:
        Cross, M. C. and P. C. Hohenberg (1993). "Pattern Formation outside of
       Equilibrium."  Rev. Mod. Phys. 65: 851-1112.

An interesting application which exhibits pattern formation and spatio-
temporal chaos is to excitable media in biological or chemical systems. See

        Chaos, Solitions and Fractals 5 #3&4 (1995) Nonlinear Phenomena in Excitable 
      Physiological System,
      <http://www.elsevier.nl:80/estoc/publications/store/9/09600779/>
        <http://www-im.lcs.mit.edu/broch/fir1.html> Excitable Media
        <http://www.physiol.arizona.edu/CELL/Instruct/BodyElect/ExcitMemb.html> 
      The Excitable Cell Membrane
        <http://avs.iephb.ru/resinter.htm> Self-organization and 
      Pattern Formation

[3.16] What are cellular automata?                                                 
(Thanks to Pavel Pokorny for Contributions to this answer)

        A Cellular automaton (CA) is a dynamical system with discrete time (like 
a map, see [2.6]), discrete state space and discrete geometrical space (like 
an ODE), see [2.7]). Thus they can be represented by a state s(i,j) for 
spatial state i, at time j, where s is taken from some finite set. The update 
rule is that the new state is some function of the old states, s(i,j+1) = 
f(s). The following table shows the distinctions between PDE's, ODE's, coupled 
map lattices (CML) and CA in taking time, state space or geometrical space 
either continuous (C) of discrete (D):
        time   state space    geometrical space
 PDE      C          C              C
 ODE      C          C              D
 CML      D          C              D
 CA       D          D              D

        Perhaps the most famous CA is Conway's game "life." This CA evolves 
according to a deterministic rule which gives the state of a site in the next 
generation as a function of the states of neighboring sites in the present 
generation. This rule is applied to all sites.

For further reading see

        S. Wolfram (1986) Theory and Application of Cellular Automata, World 
Scientific Singapore.
        Physica 10D (1984)--the entire volume

[3.17] What is a Bifurcation?
(Thanks to Zhen Mei for Contributions to this answer)

A bifurcation is a qualitative change in dynamics upon a small variation in 
the parameters of a system.

Many dynamical systems depend on parameters, e.g. Reynolds number, catalyst 
density, temperature, etc. Normally a gradually variation of a parameter in 
the system corresponds to the gradual variation of the solutions of the 
problem. However, there exists a large number of problems for which the number 
of solutions changes abruptly and the structure of solution manifolds varies 
dramatically when a parameter passes through some critical values. For 
example, the abrubt buckling of a stab when the stress is increased beyond a 
critical value, the onset of convection and turbulence when the flow 
parameters are changed, the formation of patterns in certain PDE's, etc. This 
kind of phenomena is called bifurcation, i.e. a qualitative change in the 
behaviour of solutions of a dynamics system, a partial differential equation 
or a delay differetial equation.

Bifurcation theory is a method for studying how solutions of a nonlinear 
problem and their stability change as the parameters varies. The onset of 
chaos is often studied by bifurcation theory. For example, in certain 
parameterized families ofone dimensional maps, chaos occurs by infinitely many 
period doubling bifurcations
        (See <http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~berland/math/feigenbaum/>)

There are a number of well constructed computer tools for studying 
bifurcations. In particular see [5.2] for AUTO and DStool.





[4]     To Learn More        
                                 
[4.1] What should I read to learn more?
        Popularizations
1       Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos, the Making of a New Science. 
      London, Heinemann.
2       Stewart, I. (1989). Does God Play Dice? Cambridge, Blackwell.
3       Devaney, R. L. (1990). Chaos, Fractals, and Dynamics: Computer 
      Experiments in Mathematics. Menlo Park, Addison-Wesley
4       Lorenz, E., (1994) The Essence of Chaos, Univ. of Washington Press.

        Introductory Texts
1       Abraham, R. H. and C. D. Shaw (1992) Dynamics: The Geometry of 
      Behavior, 2nd ed. Redwood City, Addison-Wesley.
2       Baker, G. L. and J. P. Gollub (1990). Chaotic Dynamics. 
      Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press. 
      <http://www.cup.org/Titles/38/052138897X.html>
3       DevaneyDevaney, R. L. (1986). An Introduction to Chaotic Dynamical 
      Systems. Menlo Park, Benjamin/Cummings.
      <http://math.bu.edu/people/bob/books.html>
4       Kaplan, D. and L. Glass (1995). Understanding Nonlinear Dynamics, 
      Springer-Verlag New York. <http://www.cnd.mcgill.ca/Understanding/>
5       Glendinning, P. (1994). Stability, Instability and Chaos. 
      Cambridge, Cambridge Univ Press. 
      <http://www.cup.org/Titles/415/0521415535.html>
6       Jurgens, H., H.-O. Peitgen, et al. (1993). Chaos and Fractals: New 
      Frontiers of Science. New York, Springer Verlag.
      <http://www.springer-ny.com/catalog/np/updates/0-387-97903-4.html>
7       Moon, F. C. (1992). Chaotic and Fractal Dynamics. New York, John Wiley. 
      <gopher://gopher.infor.com:6000/0exec%3A-v%20a%20R9469895-9471436-
         text/Main%3A/.bin/aview>
8       Percival, I. C. and D. Richard (1982). Introduction to Dynamics. 
         Cambridge, 
      Cambridge Univ. Press. <http://www.cup.org/Titles/28/0521281490.html>
9       Strogatz, S. (1994). Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos. Reading, 
      Addison-Wesley.
10      Thompson, J. M. T. and H. B. Stewart (1986) Nonlinear Dynamics and 
      Chaos. Chichester, John Wiley and Sons.
11      Tufillaro, N., T. Abbott, et al. (1992). An Experimental Approach 
      to Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos. Redwood City, Addison-Wesley. 
      <http://www.awl.com/gb/abp/abp.html>
12      Turcotte, Donald L. (1992). Fractals and Chaos in Geology and 
      Geophysics, Cambridge Univ. Press. 
      <http://www.cup.org/Titles/412/0521412706.html>

        Introductory Articles
1       May, R. M. (1986). "When Two and Two Do Not Make Four." 
      Proc. Royal Soc. B228: 241.
2       Berry, M. V. (1981). "Regularity and Chaos in Classical Mechanics, 
      Illustrated by Three Deformations of a Circular Billiard." 
      Eur. J. Phys. 2: 91-102.
3       Crawford, J. D. (1991). "Introduction to Bifurcation Theory." 
      Reviews of Modern Physics 63(4): 991-1038.
3       Shinbrot, T., C. Grebogi, et al. (1992). "Chaos in a Double Pendulum." 
      Am. J. Phys 60: 491-499.
5       David Ruelle. (1980). "Strange Attractors," 
      The Mathematical Intelligencer 2:  126-37.

        Advanced Texts
1       Arnold, V. I. (1978). Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics.
     New York, Springer.
        <http://www.springer-ny.com/catalog/np/may95np/DATA/0-387-96890-
         3.html>
2       Arrowsmith, D. K. and C. M. Place (1990),  An Introduction to Dynamical 
         Systems.
      Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
3       Guckenheimer, J. and P. Holmes (1983), Nonlinear Oscillations, Dynamical
      Systems, and Bifurcation of Vector Fields, Springer-Verlag New 
         York.
4       Kantz, H., and T. Schreiber (1997). Nonlinear time series analysis.
      Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
      <http://wptu38.physik.uni-
         wuppertal.de/Chaos/schreiber/myrefs/book.html>
5       Katok, A. and B. Hasselblatt (1995), Introduction to the Modern
      Theory of Dynamical Systems, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press.
       <http://www.cup.org/Titles/34/0521341876.html>
6       Hilborn, R. (1994), Chaos and Nonlinear Dyanamics: an Introduction for
      Scientists and Engineers, Oxford Univesity Press.
         <http://www1.oup.co.uk/scripts/readcat?title=Chaos+and+Nonlinear+Dynamics>
7       Lichtenberg, A.J. and M. A. Lieberman (1983), Regular and Chaotic Motion, 
      Springer-Verlag, New York .
8       Lind, D. and Marcus, B.  (1995) An Introduction to Symbolic Dynamics and
         Coding,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 
         <http://www.math.washington.edu/SymbolicDynamics/>
9       MacKay, R.S and  J.D. Meiss  (eds) (1987), Hamiltonian Dynamical Systems 
         A reprint selection, , Adam Hilger, Bristol
10      Nayfeh, A.H.  and B. Balachandran (1995), Applied Nonlinear Dynamics:
      Analytical, Computational and Experimental Methods
      John Wiley& SonsInc., New York
11      Ott, E. (1993). Chaos in Dynamical Systems. Cambridge University Press, 
      Cambridge. <http://www.cup.org/Titles/43/0521432154.html>
12      L.E. Reichl, (1992), The Transition to Chaos, in Conservative and 
         Classical Systems: Quantum Manifestations  Springer-Verlag, New York
13      Robinson, C. (1995), Dynamical Systems: Stability, Symbolic
      Dynamics, and Chaos, Boca Raton, CRC Press. 
      <http://www.crcpress.com/catalog/8493.htm>
14      Ruelle, D. (1989), Elements of Differentiable Dynamics and Bifurcation 
         Theory,Academic Press Inc.
15      Tabor, M. (1989), Chaos and Integrability in Nonlinear Dynamics:
      an Introduction, Wiley, New York.
      <gopher://ns1.infor.com:7000/77/.wais/author?tabor>
16      Wiggins, S. (1990), Introduction to Applied Nonlinear Dynamical Systems 
         and Chaos,Springer-Verlag New York.
17      Wiggins, S. (1988), Global Bifurcations and Chaos, Springer-Verlag New 
         York.





                                         


[4.2] What technical journals have nonlinear science articles?

Physica D                    The premier journal in Nonlinear Dynamics
Nonlinearity                 Good mix, with a mathematical bias
Chaos                        AIP Journal, with a good physical bent
Physics Letters A            Has a good nonlinear science section
Physical Review E            Lots of Physics articles with nonlinear emphasis
Ergodic Theory and           Rigorous mathematics, and careful work
      Dynamical Systems
J Differential Equations     A premier journal, but very mathematical
J Dynamics and Diff. Eq.     Good, more focused version of the above
J Dynamics and Stability     Focused on Eng. applications. New editorial
      of Systems              board--stay tuned.
J Statistical Physics        Used to contain seminal dynamical systems papers
SIAM Journals                Only the odd dynamical systems paper
J Fluid Mechanics            Some expt. papers, e.g. transition to turbulence
Nonlinear Dynamics           Haven't read enough to form an opinion
J Nonlinear Science          a newer journal--haven't read enough yet.
Nonlinear Science Today      Weekly News: <http://www.springer-ny.com/nst/>
International J of           lots of color pictures, variable quality.
    Bifurcation and Chaos
Chaos Solitons and Fractals  Variable quality, some good applications
Communications in Math Phys  an occasional paper on dynamics
Nonlinear Processes in       New, variable quality...may be improving
    Geophysics

[4.3] What are net sites for nonlinear science materials?

      Bibliography
        http://www-chaos.umd.edu/publications/references.html#numerical Maryland
        http://www.uni-mainz.de/FB/Physik/Chaos/chaosbib.html Mainz http site
        ftp://ftp.uni-mainz.de/pub/chaos/chaosbib/ Mainz ftp site
        http://t13.lanl.gov/ronnie/cabinet.html Search Site
        http://www-chaos.umd.edu/~msanjuan/biblio.html Sanjuan's Site
        http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/~bruce/combib/  Complexity Bibliography
        http://www.mth.uea.ac.uk/~h720/ebeds/ebeds.html  Ergodic Theory and 
      Dynamical Systems
        http://cnls.lanl.gov/People/nbt/nldres.pdf Nonlinear Dynamics Resources 
         (pdf file)

      Preprint Archives
        http://www.math.sunysb.edu/dynamics/preprints/  StonyBrook
        http://cnls.lanl.gov/People/nbt/intro.html Los Alamos Preprint Server
        http://xxx.lanl.gov/  Nonlinear Science Eprint Server
        http://www.ma.utexas.edu/mp_arc/mp_arc-home.html   Math-Physics Archive
        http://www.ams.org/preprints/  AMS Preprint

      Conference Announcements
        http://www.math.sunysb.edu/dynamics/conferences/conferences.html 
        http://www.nonlin.tu-muenchen.de/chaos/termine.html 
        http://xxx.lanl.gov/Announce/Conference/
        http://www2.tam.uiuc.edu/ICTAM2000 Theoretical & Applied Mecahnics 2000

      Newsletters
        gopher://gopher.siam.org:70/11/siag/ds   SIAM Dynamical Systems Group
        http://www.amsta.leeds.ac.uk/Applied/news.dir/  UK Nonlinear News

      Education Sites
        http://math.bu.edu/DYSYS/  Devaney's Dynamical Systems Project

      Electronic Journals
        http://www.springer-ny.com/nst/   Nonlinear Science Today
        http://journals.wiley.com/1076-2787/  The Complexity Journal
        http://www.csu.edu.au/ci/ci.html  Complexity International Journal
        http://jiangt.pku.edu.cn/nlscomm Comm in Nonl Sci & Num Simulation

      Electronic Texts
        http://cnls.lanl.gov/People/nbt//Book/node1.html An experimental approach 
            to nonlinear dynamics and chaos
        http://www.lib.rmit.edu.au/fractals/exploring.html  
      Exploring Chaos & Fractals
        http://www.nbi.dk/~predrag/QCcourse/  Lecture Notes on Periodic Orbits

      Institutes and Academic Programs
        http://www.tp.umu.se/TIPTOP/paw/dsearch.html  Physics Institutes
        http://ip-service.com/WiW/institutes.html   Nonlinear Groups
        http://www.ucl.ac.uk/CNDA/resources/uk.html  UK Nonlinear Sites
        http://www-chaos.engr.utk.edu/Related.html#rese Research Groups in Chaos

      Who is Who in Nonlinear Dynamics
        http://ip-service.com/WiW/wiw.html Munich
        http://www.math.sunysb.edu/dynamics/people/list.html  Stonybrook List

      Lists of Nonlinear sites
        http://cnls.lanl.gov/nbt/sites.html  Tufillaro's List
        http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~ag-ho/chaos/chaos.html Chaos Homepage

      Dynamical Systems
        http://www.math.sunysb.edu/dynamics/  Dynamical Systems Home Page

      Chaos sites
        http://www.industrialstreet.com/chaos/metalink.htm#SCIENCE  
      Chaos Metalink
        http://cnls.lanl.gov/nbt/sites.html  Tufillaro's list of sites
        http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/rec/ifs/  Iterated Function Systems Playground
        http://acl2.physics.gatech.edu/tutorial/outline.htm Tutorial on Control of 
                 Chaos
        http://pineapple.apmaths.uwo.ca/~blair/nonlinearlab.html  Nonlinear Lab 
                 (more Java!)
        http://www.mathsoft.com/asolve/constant/fgnbaum/fgnbaum.html  All about 
                  Feigenbaum Constants
        http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~berland/math/feigenbaum/ The Feigenbaum Fractal
        http://members.aol.com/MTRw3/index.html  Mike Rosenstein's Chaos Page.
        http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~ag-ho/chaos/  Introduction to Chaos
        http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/cogsci/chaos/cspls.html Chaos in 
                     Psychology

      Time Series                                                            
        http://cnls.lanl.gov/nbt/intro.html  Dynamics and Time Series
        http://chuchi.df.uba.ar/series.html   Time series
        http://www.maths.monash.edu.au/~hyndman/tseries/  Time Series Data Library

      Complex Systems Sites
        http://life.csu.edu.au/vl_complex/  Complex Systems Virtual Library
        http://www.duth.gr/~mboudour/nonlin.html  Complexity Home Page
        http://members.aol.com/calresco/index.htm The Complexity & Artificial Life 
                    Web Site

      Fractals Sites
        http://forum.swarthmore.edu/advanced/robertd/index.html#frac A Fractal 
         Gallery
        http://spanky.triumf.ca/www/welcome1.html  The Spanky Fractal DataBase
        http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/fractals.htm  Sprott's Fractal Gallery
        http://www-syntim.inria.fr/fractales/  Groupe Fractales
        http://force.stwing.upenn.edu/~lau/fractal.html  Lau's Fractal Stuff
        http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/massimin/quat/f_gal.html  3D Fractals
        http://www.cnam.fr/fractals.html  Fractal Gallery
        http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/~cahalan/FractalClouds/ Fractal Clouds
        http://kogs-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~wiemker/applets/fastfrac/fastfrac.html 
                  Java Fractal Explorer
        http://members.aol.com/ddemars/gallery.html Fractal Domains Gallery





[5]     Computational Resources                       [5.1] What are general computational resources?         NIST Guide to Available Mathematical Software       <http://gams.cam.nist.gov/>         Mathematics Archives Software        <http://archives.math.utk.edu/software.html>         FAQ guide to packages from sci.math.num-analysis       <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/num-analysis/faq/part1>         Numerical Recipes Home Page       <http://cfata2.harvard.edu/nr/>       <http://nr.harvard.edu/nr/public-domain.html> NR Public Domain Area         CAIN Europe Archives       <http://www.can.nl/Education/Software/software.html> Software Area       <http://www.can.nl/Systems_and_Packages/Per_Purpose/Special/DiffEqns/#diffeqns> [5.2] Where can I find specialized programs for  nonlinear               science?         The Academic Software Library:         Chaos Simulations Bessoir, T., and A. Wolf, 1990. Demonstrates logistic map, Lyapunov  exponents, billiards in a stadium, sensitive dependence, n-body  gravitational motion.         Chaos Data Analyser A PC program for analyzing time series. By Sprott, J.C. and G. Rowlands.  For more info:<http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/cda.htm>         Chaos Demonstrations A PC program for demonstrating chaos, fractals, cellular automata, and  related nonlinear phenomena.  By J. C. Sprott and G. Rowlands. System: IBM PC or compatible with at least 512K of memory. Available: The Academic Software Library, (800) 955-TASL. $70.         Chaotic Dynamics Workbench Performs interactive numerical experiments on systems modeled by  ordinary differential equations, including: four versions of driven  Duffing oscillators, pendulum, Lorenz, driven Van der Pol osc., driven  Brusselator, and the Henon-Heils system.  By R. Rollins. System: IBM PC or compatible, 512 KB memory. Available: The Academic Software Library, (800) 955-TASL, $70         Applied Chaos Tools Software package for time series analysis based on the UCSD group's, work.  This package is a companion for Abarbanel's book Analysis of Observed  Chaotic Data, Springer-Verlag. System: Unix-Motif, Windows 95/NT For more info see: <http://www.zweb.com/apnonlin/csp.html>         AUTO Bifurcation/Continuation Software (THE standard). The latest version is  AUTO97. The GUI requires X and Motif to be present. There is also a  command line version AUTO86. The software is transported as a compressed  file called auto.tar.Z. System: versions to run under X windows--SUN or sgi or LINUX Available: anonymous ftp from <ftp://ftp.cs.concordia.ca/pub/doedel/auto>          Chaos Visual simulation in two- and three-dimensional phase space; based on  visual algorithms rather than canned numerical algorithms; well-suited for  educational use; comes with tutorial exercises. System: Silicon Graphics workstations, IBM RISC workstations with GL Available: <http://msg.das.bnl.gov/~bstewart/software.html>         Chaos A Program Collection for the PC by Korsch, H.J. and H-J. Jodl, 1994, A  book/disk combo that gives a hands-on, computer experiment approach to  learning nonlinear dynamics. Some of the modules cover billiard systems,  double pendulum, Duffing oscillator, 1D iterative maps, an "electronic  chaos-generator", the Mandelbrot set, and ODEs. System: IBM PC or compatible. Available: Springer-Verlag         CHAOS II Chaos Programs to go with Baker, G. L. and J. P. Gollub (1990) Chaotic  Dynamics. Cambridge, Cambridge Univ.  <http://www.cup.org/Titles/38/052138897X.html> System: IBM, 512K memory, CGA or EGA graphics, True Basic For more info: contact Gregory Baker, P.O. Box 278 ,Bryn Athyn, PA, 19009         Chaos Analyser Programs to Time delay embedding, Attractor (3d) viewing and animation,  Poincare sections, Mutual information, Singular Value Decomposition  embedding, Full Lyapunov spectra (with noise cancellation), Local SVD  analysis (for determining the systems dimension). By Mike Banbrook. System: Unix, X windows For more info: <http://www.ee.ed.ac.uk/~mb/analysis_progs.html>         Chaos Cookbook These programs go with J. Pritchard's book, The Chaos Cookbook System:  Programs written in Visual Basic & Turbo Pascal Available: <http://www.demon.co.uk/advantage/chaos/chaos.htm>         Chaos Plot                                                                ChaosPlot is a simple program which plots the chaotic behavior of a  damped, driven anharmonic oscillator. System: Macintosh For more info:  <http://archives.math.utk.edu/software/mac/diffEquations/.directory.html>         Cubic Oscillator Explorer The CUBIC OSCILLATOR EXPLORER is a Macintosh application which allows  interactive exploration of the chaotic processes of the Cubic Oscillator,  i.e..Duffing's equation. System: Macintosh + Digidesign DSPÊcard, Digisystem init 2.6 and  (optional) MIDI Manager Available: <http://www-ks.rus.uni-stuttgart.de/people/schulz/fmusic/>  Fractal Music         dstool Free software from Guckenheimer's group at Cornell; DSTool has lots of  examples of chaotic systems, PoincarŽ sections, bifurcation diagrams. System: Unix, X windows. Available: <ftp://macomb.tn.cornell.edu/pub/dstool/>         Dynamical Software Pro Analyze non-linear dynamics and chaos. Includes ODEs, delay differential  equations, discrete maps, numerical integration, time series embedding,  etc.  System: DOS. Microsoft Fortran compiler for user defined equations. Available: SciTech <http://www.scitechint.com/>         Dynamics: Numerical Explorations. A book + disk by H. Nusse,  and J.Yorke. A hands on approach to learning  the concepts and the many aspects in computing relevant quantities in  chaos System: PC-compatible computer or X-windows system on Unix computers Available: http://www.springer-ny.com/catalog/np/jun97np/DATA/0-387- 98264-7.html>         FD3 A program to estimate fractal dimensions of a set. By DiFalco/Sarraille   System: C source code, suitable for compiling for use on a Unix or DOS  platform. Available: ftp://ftp.cs.csustan.edu/pub/fd3/>         FracGen FracGen is a freeware program  to create fractal images using Iterated  Function Systems. A tutorial is provided with the program. By Patrick  Bangert   System: PC-compatible computer, Windows 3.1 Available: <http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~zcapn39/fracgen.html>         Fractal Domains Generates of Mandelbrot and Julia sets. By Dennis C. De Mars System: Power Macintosh Available: <http://members.aol.com/ddemars/fracppc.html>         Fractal Explorer Generates Mandelbrot and Newton's method fractals. By Peter Stone System: Power Macintosh Available: <http://www.island.net/~fractexp/>         Ilya A program to visually study a reaction-diffusion model based on the  Brusselator from Future Skills Software, Herber Sauro. System: Requires Windows 95, at least 256 colours Available : <http://www.fssc.demon.co.uk/rdiffusion/ilya.htm>         INSITE                                                                 (It's a Nonlinear Systems Investigative Toolkit for Everyone) is a  collection for the simulation and characterization of dynamical systems,  with an emphasis on chaotic systems. Companion software for T.S. Parker  and L.O. Chua (1989) Practical Numerical Algorithms for Chaotic Systems   Springer Verlag. See the paper T.S. Parker and L.O. Chua (1987) "INSITE- A  Software Toolkit for the Analysis of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems," Proc.  of the  IEEE, 75, 1081-1089. System: C codes in Unix Tar or DOS format (later requires QuickWindowC       or MetaWINDOW/Plus 3.7C. and  MS C compiler 5.1) Available: INSITE SOFTWARE, p.o. Box 9662, Berkeley, CA , U.S.A.         Institut fur ComputerGraphik A collection of programs for developing advanced visualization techniques  in the field of three-dimensional dynamical systems. By Lšffelmann H.,  Gršller E. System: various, requires AVS Available: http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/vis/dynsys/>         KAOS1D A tool for studying one-dimensional (1D) discrete dynamical systems. Does  bifurcation diagrams, etc. for a number of maps System: PC compatible computer, DOS, VGA graphics Available: <http://www.if.ufrgs.br/~arenzon/jsoftw.html>         LOCBIF An interactive tool for bifurcation analysis of non-linear ordinary  differential equations ODE's and maps. By Khibnik, Nikolaev, Kuznetsov and  V. Levitin  System: DOS version 3.0 or higher. Available: <http://www.can.nl/AboutCAN/ExpertiseCenter/softwares.html>         Lyapunov Exponents and Time Series Based on Alan Wolf's algorithm, see[2.11], but a more efficient version. System: Comes as C source, Fortran source, PC executable, etc Available:  <http://www.users.interport.net/~wolf/chaos/chaos.htm>         Lyapunov Exponents Keith Briggs Fortran codes for Lyapunov exponents System: any with a Fortran compiler Available: <http://www.pd.uwa.edu.au/Keith/homepage.html>         Lyapunov Exponents and Time Series Michael Banbrook's C codes for Lyapunov exponents & time series analysis System: Sun with X windows. Available: <http://www.ee.ed.ac.uk/~mb/analysis_progs.html>         MacMath                                                              Comes on a disk with the book MacMath, by Hubbard and West. A collection  of programs for dynamical systems (1 & 2 D maps, 1 to 3D flows). Some  expected features (color, resizeable windows) are not supported (in  version 9.0). System: Macintosh For more info: <http://archives.math.utk.edu/cgi- bin/fife.test/mkTxtPage.pl?/ftp/software/mac/diffEquations/MacMath/MacMath .abstract> Available: Springer-Verlag  <http://www.ee.ed.ac.uk/~mb/analysis_progs.html>         Madonna                                                                  Solves Differential and Difference Equations. Runs STELLA. Has a parser  with a control language. System: Macintosh or Windows PC Available : http://www.kagi.com/authors/madonna/default.html>         MatLab Chaos A collection of routines for generate diagrams which illustrate chaotic  behavior associated with the logistic equation. System: Requires MatLab. Available : <ftp://ftp.mathworks.com/pub/contrib/misc/chaos/>         MTRChaos MTRCHAOS and MTRLYAP compute correlation dimension and largest Lyapunov  exponents, delay portraits. By Mike Rosenstein.  System: PC-compatible computer running DOS 3.1 or higher, 640K RAM, and  EGA display. VGA & coprocessor recommended Available:  ftp://spanky.triumf.ca/pub/fractals/programs/ibmpc/>         NLD Toolbox This toolbox has many of the standard dynamical systems, By Jeff Brush System: PC, MS-DOS. Available: <http://www.pioneerdt.com/jbrush/nldtools.html>         ODECalc A program for integrating boundary value and initial value Problems for up  to 9th order ODEs. System: PC 386+, DOS 3.3+, 16 bit arch. Available : <http://awaiter.com/public/user/1311/index.htm>         PHASER Kocak, H., 1989. Differential and Difference Equations through Computer  Experiments: with a supplementary diskette containing PHASER: An  Animator/Simulator for Dynamical Systems. Demonstrates a large number of  1D-4D differential equations--many not chaotic--and 1D-3D difference  equations. System: PC-compatible computer + ??? Available: Springer-Verlag <http://www.springer-ny.com>         SANTIS Tool for Signal ANd TIme Series analysis, with graphical user interface.  Contains standard facilities for signal processing as well as advanced  features like wavelet techniques and methods of nonlinear dynamics. Systems: MS Windows, Linux, SUN Solaris 2.3, SGI Irix 5.3 Available: <http://www.physiology.rwth-aachen.de/santis/>         SciLab A simulation program similar in intent to MatLab. It's primarily designed  for systems/signals work, and is large. From INRIA in France. System: Unix, X Windows, 20 Meg Disk space. Available : <ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/Meta2/Scilab>         StdMap                                                                    Iterates Area Preserving Maps, by J. D. Meiss. Iterates 8 different maps.  It will find periodic orbits, cantori, stable and unstable manifolds, and  allows you to iterate curves. System: Macintosh Available: <ftp://amath.colorado.edu/pub/dynamics/programs/>         STELLA Simulates dynamics for Biological and Social systems modelling. Uses a  building block metaphor constructing models. System: Macintosh and Windows PC Available: $$ <http://www.hps-inc.com/products/STELLA/stella.html>         Time Series Tools An extensive list of Unix tools for Time Series analysis System: Unix For more info: <http://chuchi.df.uba.ar/tools/tools.html>         Time Series Analysis from Darmstadt Four prgrams Time Series analysis and Dimension calculation. Three of them  look like codes for OS2 (haven't confirmed this), and one is a std Fortran  source System: OS2 and/or Fortran For more info: <http://www.physik.th-darmstadt.de/nlp/distribution.html>         Time Series Analysis from Kennel The program mkball  finds the minimum embedding dimension using the false  strands enhancement of the false neighbors algorithm of Kennel &  Abarbanel. System: any C compiler Availaole: <ftp://lyapunov.ucsd.edu/pub/nonlinear/mbkall.tar.gz>         Tufillaro's Programs From the book Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos by Tufillaro, Abbot and Reilly  (1992) (for a sample section see  http://cnls.lanl.gov/nbt/Book/openall3.ps>). A collection of programs for  the Macintosh. System: Macintosh Available: <ftp://cnls.lanl.gov/pub/time-series/mac/> For more info: <http://cnls.lanl.gov/nbt/qm.html> and http://cnls.lanl.gov/nbt/bb.html>         Unified Life Models (ULM) ULM, by Stephane Legendre, is a program to study population dynamics and  more generally, discrete dynamical systems. It models any species life  cycle graph (matrix models) inter- and intra-specific competition (non  linear systems), environmental stochasticity, demographic stochasticity  (branching processes), and  metapopulations, migrations (coupled systems). System: PC/Windows 3.X Available: from <http://www.snv.jussieu.fr>         VRA (Visual Recurrence Analysis) VRA is a software to display and Study the recurrence plots, first  described by Eckmann, Oliffson Kamphorst And Ruelle in 1987. With RP, one  can graphically detect hidden patterns and structural changes in data or  see similarities in patterns across the time series under study. By Eugene  Kononov Stystem: Windows 95 Available: <http://www.netcom.com/~eugenek/page6.html >                                  Xphased Phase 3D plane program for X-windows systems (for systems like Lorenz,  Rossler). Plot, rotate in 3-d, Poincare sections, etc. By Thomas P.  Witelski System: X-windows, Unix, SunOS 4 binary Available: <http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~witelski/xphased.html>         XPP-Aut Differential equations and maps for x-windows systems. Links to Auto for  bifurcation analysis. By Bard Ermentrout System: X-windows, Binaries for many unix systems Available : <ftp://ftp.math.pitt.edu/pub/bardware/tut/start.html>         XSpiral Simulate pattern formation in 2-D excitable media (in particular 2 models,  one of them the  FitzHugh-Nagumo). By Flavio Fenton. System: X-windows Available :  <http://www.physics.neu.edu/pages/Flavio.Fenton/xspiral/man.html> [6] Acknowledgments          Alan Champneys <a.r.champneys@bristol.ac.uk>          Jim Crutchfield <chaos@gojira.Berkeley.EDU>          S. H. Doole <Stuart.Doole@Bristol.ac.uk>          David Elliot <delliott@isr.umd.edu>          Fred Klingener <klingener@BrockEng.com>          Matt Kennel <kennel@msr.epm.ornl.gov>          Jose Korneluk <jose.korneluk@sfwmd.gov>          Wayne Hayes <wayne@cs.toronto.edu>          Justin Lipton <JML@basil.eng.monash.edu.au>          Ronnie Mainieri <ronnie@cnls.lanl.gov>          Zhen Mei <meizhen@mathematik.uni-marburg.de>          Gerard Middleton <middleto@mcmail.CIS.McMaster.CA>          Andy de Paoli <andrea.depaoli@mail.esrin.esa.it>          Lou Pecora <pecora@zoltar.nrl.navy.mil>          Pavel Pokorny <pokornp@tiger.vscht.cz>,          Leon Poon <lpoon@Glue.umd.edu>          Hawley Rising <rising@crl.com>,          Michael Rosenstein <MTR1a@aol.com>          Harold Ruhl <hjr@connix.com>          Troy Shinbrot <shinbrot@bart.chem-eng.nwu.edu>          Viorel Stancu <vstancu@sb.tuiasi.ro>          Jaroslav Stark <j.stark@ucl.ac.uk>          Bruce Stewart <bstewart@bnlux1.bnl.gov>          Richard Tasgal <tasgal@math.tau.ac.il>                                  Anyone else who would like to contribute, please do! Send me your comments:  http://amath.colorado.edu/appm/faculty/jdm/ Jim Meiss at  <jdm@boulder.colorado.edu> --          James Meiss         Program in Applied Math         jdm@boulder.colorado.edu